How Avast! 5.0 Antivirus can be Temporarily Disabled

This is crazy but exactly two years ago and I mean EXACTLY two years ago, I wrote a guide on how to temporarily disable Avast! That handy guide showed a simple procedure to end several antivirus processes in the Windows Task Manager, freeing up memory and improving game performance for gaming PCs. While the procedure was easy, it still was unwieldy, forcing PC tweakers to locate eight or so antivirus processes on the Task Manager interface. Fast forward to the present and Alwil Software has greatly streamlined their freeware antivirus product, presenting a spiffy UI and enhanced tweakability.

Want to know how to temporarily disable Avast! 5.0's real-time shields to free up memory space? Click the link below:

NOTE: Disabling your anti-virus software is a risky affair. I'm only posting this for my personal reference. Do the procedure at your own risk. (It does however, free up your system resources while gaming and will greatly improve performance. I promptly undo the procedure everytime I finish gaming however. )

On the UI, under "Real-Time Shields", Avast! 5.0 now presents users nearly all the processes under a single list, doing away with the need to hunt down all seven from the Windows Task Manager:


You can then choose to stop each Real-Time Shield individually.

There's a quicker way to do this though. Right click on the Avast! 5.0 icon on your task bar. It will show you this pop-up screen:


Under Avast! Shields Control you can now choose to disable the Real-Time Shields. For gaming purposes, I suggest you pick "Disable until computer is restarted." This way after gaming, you can then restart your gaming PC, activating all the real-time shields.

The above process though leaves "AvastSVC.exe" and "AvastUI.exe" running, two process that gobble more than 25Mb of memory. These processes can't be found on the "Real-Time Shields" menu and can't be stopped just by clicking "End Process" on the Windows Task Manager.


In order for you to disable the two, go to "Settings" then click "Troubleshooting":


Once there, uncheck "Enable avast! Self-defense module." This will allow you to disable the two services. Go back now to the Windows Task Manager, choose the processes and click "End Process." Done!

Note: After gaming, I restart my PC, which will cause Avast! to run again. I then go back to Avast!'s Program Settings and uncheck "Disable Avast! self-defense module." I never forget to do this as it's dangerous to leave it checked. Also, I do not surf the Net if Avast! is in any way disabled.